


Not Just a Mask

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Series: Wicked and Divine [2]
Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Crossdressing, Genderplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-18
Updated: 2011-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:19:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "Come as You Are". Comic-Con, the infamous Uhura costume, and more genderbending PWP. Focal pairing is Sheldon/Raj; I figure this is set sometime not long after Howard and Bernadette and Leonard and Penny hook up. (Not all four of them together, you sickos. Stop looking at me like that.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Just a Mask

**Author's Note:**

> The Big Bang Theory characters belong to forces greater than me; I just play with them between seasons (and during seasons, and basically all the time). Title's a line from Muse's "Undisclosed Desires".
> 
> Thanks and dedication to my beta afullmargin, who, no matter how full her margins are, always makes time to correct my depravity. (It's still depraved, but with better grammar.)

Raj tries to kid himself that he doesn’t have an ulterior motive for dressing as Uhura for Comic-Con. Howard teases him about crossplay being totally unoriginal and then starts trying to persuade him to go as Smurfette instead which, just, what the _fuck_.

Leonard hears about his idea and elects to dress as Captain Kirk, which is maybe not the best choice given his body type, but Raj knows better than to throw _that_ particular stone. Howard decrees that this makes him McCoy, _obviously_ , because there’s no need to even ask who Sheldon will be going as.

This year they have three rooms, since Bernadette and Penny are coming along to see what it’s all about, because of course there’s no way _that_ can end badly.

“Sorry to leave you with Sheldon,” Leonard says at some point during the planning process.

“I’ll manage,” Raj says, the words _pretty girl_ echoing somewhere in the back of his head.

* * *

Sheldon remains impressively impassive although he knows about Raj’s intended costume – right up until Raj comes out of the bathroom with the hem of the red dress hitting him just above the knees and his hair, allowed to grow out for the occasion, pulled back in the best high ponytail he can manage. Then, Raj can practically see Sheldon’s pupils dilate from across the room. The impending discomfort of spending a day walking around in stockings and knee-high boots is worth it just to be looked at like that.

“What do you think?” he can’t resist asking, twirling just a little to let his dress flare out mid-thigh.

“I think you’re going to get a lot of attention today.”

Is that _jealousy_ in Sheldon’s voice?

The Sheldon staring at him from across the room is not the Sheldon that the rest of the world is used to seeing. His cheeks are tinged with pink and his hand is shaking a little when he catches Raj’s wrist, thumb rubbing over the gold braiding encircling Raj’s forearm before he slides his hand up to Raj’s shoulder and pulls him closer.

Sheldon only knows a little about kissing and sex, but what he does know he puts to good use. Raj’s head is spinning by the time Sheldon’s mouth reluctantly parts from his, and there’s a bulge disturbing the fall of the front of his dress.

“We... we should get going before Leonard comes looking for us.”

Sheldon blinks. “Oh. Of course.” But he takes a moment to run one hand down Raj’s back and over the curve of his ass before they head for the door.

* * *

Comic-Con is a gigantic event. Sheldon starts planning for each con at least a year in advance; they’ve had their hotel rooms booked since the dates were confirmed. Penny watches them with gentle bemusement as they discuss panels and discussions and signings and the layout of the dealers’ hall; Bernadette looks ready to make a mad rush for it before she spots someone in a costume that Raj doesn’t recognize but is apparently relevant to her interests.

“Whoa, sweetie, don’t run off, we might lose you,” Howard says, reeling her back in toward him.

“But she was meant to be Georgia Mason, I’m sure!”

“You’ll probably see her again.”

“Can’t I just go for a few minutes? I’ll call you.”

“Phones don’t always work here,” Leonard says, and Penny clutches hers in horror. “There’re too many people trying to use the networks.”

Bernadette grumpily settles down, mumbling something about how if there _is_ a zombie uprising here and nobody can communicate it’ll serve them all right.

Eventually the six of them have their schedules coordinated, locations to meet for lunch and dinner, and it’s time to geek out. Leonard and Penny go off together, the latter looking somewhat terrified; Howard and Bernadette go after the cosplayer, as though finding her again amongst the thousands of con-goers will be at all easy; Sheldon touches Raj’s arm again and then disappears into the crowd.

Raj gets his picture taken by and with a lot of people. There are several Uhuras at the convention but he is the only male one. Nonetheless, he manages to blend in fairly well with the others, just one more red dress amongst the group. This is one place where his clothing won’t be questioned.

* * *

The six of them meet again at dinner time, after their lunch plans go awry thanks to Leonard having an asthma attack and Penny – looking strangely relieved considering her boyfriend’s the one having difficulty breathing – having to carry him out of the convention hall.

Before they eat, they get a photo taken together. Penny joins them, although she looks stubbornly mundane even with her cat ears and tail on. Raj just hopes she hasn’t seen anyone with feline body mods. The Green Lantern who holds the camera is eyeing her off and Raj makes a point of taking the camera back as quickly as possible; Captain Kirk looks incapable of defending his catgirl’s virtue.

If Spock has his arm around Uhura in a way that’s more possessive than perfunctory, then nobody notices it as they review the photos.

“I take it back,” Howard says when they’re finally seated for dinner. Bernadette looks profoundly relieved to be off her feet. Raj can empathize; he’s been Howard’s con buddy before, dragged from booth to booth, panel to panel, as though every single thing just has to be seen in the first day. “Cross-playing suits you.” And he tries to put his hand over Raj’s on the table.

“Howard, leave him alone!” Bernadette says, even though she’s got her face pressed against her folded arms on the table, glasses discarded temporarily, and looks ready to fall asleep.

“Don’t you want to bring him back to our room? He’s so pretty!” Howard asks, putting his other hand over Bernadette’s. Bernadette’s head snaps up and the look on her face suggests that Howard’s going to be lucky if _he_ gets to come back to their room, let alone bring anyone else with him.

Raj just blinks, pulls both hands away for good measure, chugs a third of his beer, and only then says, “Are you asking me for a threesome?”

Howard suddenly looks uncomfortable, as though he didn’t actually think about what he was suggesting before the words came out. “Well, I guess so... um... you know, a really high percentage of guys fantasize about them...”

“Most guys fantasize about being with two women,” Leonard says, “not the, uh, devil’s three-way.”

Bernadette looks horrified. Penny also looks horrified but she also looks fascinated and asks, “How would you know, Leonard?” and Bernadette drops her face back down onto her folded arms.

“Oh, uh... Leslie had an interesting definition of pillow talk,” Leonard mumbles, and Penny starts giggling.

“I’ve never really thought about having a third person in bed at all,” Bernadette says, her voice even smaller than usual. “Is this meant to be for my benefit or yours, Howard? I know your mom was worried about you using me as a beard when we started dating.”

“We said we wouldn’t mention that in public, sweetie,” Howard reminds her through clenched teeth.

“Come on, everyone’s thought you were gay at some point, Howard, it’s not news.” Penny’s still trying to breathe normally; her face is flushed with laughter.

“Yeah, well, what about you? Did you ever... experiment with other women in community college?” Howard shoots back.

“Hey, that’s _my_ girlfriend and none of _your_ business.” This is what Leonard says aloud. Raj sees him mouth _Did you?_ to Penny, who just raises an eyebrow and kicks him under the table.

“I thought everyone experimented in college,” Raj says, expecting someone to ask him to elaborate, but instead Penny just says, “Except Sheldon,” and starts giggling again.

Sheldon gives her a mildly unamused look. “Why? Because I was too young in college? I would have thought that by Nebraskan standards, fifteen would have been positively late-blooming.”

“Hey! We’re—” Penny pauses for some mental arithmetic and then decides not to pursue that line of objection after all. “Yeah, well, that and your total lack of interest in sex.”

“Do try to think sensibly, Penny. I’m a _scientist_. How would I know about my own aversion to coitus if I didn’t have a basis for comparison?”

“So, who was she?” Penny asks after translating this to English from Sheldonese, and Raj is perhaps the only other person at the table who knows the true meaning behind Sheldon’s minute hesitation before he says, “I don’t remember.”

“Come on, you must remember. You remember everything,” Howard says, perhaps to deflect the table away from his inadvertent reference to the devil’s three-way. Sheldon just shakes his head, but Howard’s opening his mouth already for another jibe.

“Is that Emma Watson over there?” Raj asks, deflecting Howard’s deflection. Everyone turns to look and by the time they’ve reached the consensus that it’s just a particularly good cosplayer Howard’s forgotten all about it.

* * *

Raj wasn’t so sure of himself as to “accidentally” request a king-sized bed, but since they book their accommodation each year virtually the day after the previous con, each of their three rooms has two particularly nice queen beds, which will do perfectly well.

If they ever get out of the damn elevator, that is.

It creeps from level to level, packed with other con-goers in a wide variety of costumes, chattering away in a range of accents, some familiar, some that Raj can’t quite place at all, obviously miles and miles from any of the American accents he does know.

They finally get off the elevator on their floor and back to their room. Raj fumbles his access card, bends to pick it up without thinking, and hears Sheldon gasp.

“You know, this could be serious blackmail material,” Raj points out at they enter the room. “Especially if Howard ever heard about it.”

“Against whom?” Sheldon asks, pulling Raj to him as soon as the door closes and then simply holding him, hands wrapped around his forearms. “How exactly would you explain how you know where my sexual interests lie without admitting that you’re the primary one?”

Raj swallows, shrugs, and manages a quiet, “Don’t know,” before Sheldon’s hands slide up his arms to close on his shoulders, thumbs tracing the line of Raj’s clavicle.

“You’d have to explain what happened last Halloween,” Sheldon breathes against his ear, and Raj shivers, remembering. “Not to mention telling him that you deliberately dressed like this just to see how I would react.”

Raj attempts a nonchalant shrug and fails. “It’s just cosplay, dude.”

Sheldon drops a hand to slide his fingertips along Raj’s thigh, pausing for a second on the lacy divide between stocking and skin. One finger hooks under the garter strap attached to the stocking. “I find that hard to believe,” he says softly. “I doubt Lieutenant Uhura ever wore anything this... provocative.”

“Maybe it’s fanon?”

“Maybe,” Sheldon agrees, and pushes Raj backward. It’s only when Raj lands on the bed that he realizes Sheldon has been edging him step by step across the room. Sheldon hovers over him, knees between Raj’s thighs, hands on either side of Raj’s head. “Or maybe you just want a repeat of Halloween.”

There is exactly one thing that Raj can do in response to that, which is to catch Sheldon and pull him down into a kiss. Well – two things. He also hooks his ankles around the back of Sheldon’s knees, pressing the smooth leather of his knee-high boots tight against Sheldon’s thighs.

“A repeat of Halloween couldn’t hurt,” he says when they stop kissing.

“We’ve been walking around in these costumes all day,” Sheldon protests.

Raj reaches between them and rubs the heel of his hand against the front of Sheldon’s pants. “I doubt that ever bothers Vulcans during _pon farr_ ,” he says over Sheldon’s choked moan. To tell the truth, he wouldn’t mind showering first, but he’s afraid that the loss of the illusion of his femininity will turn this back into something that no longer interests Sheldon. The memory of Sheldon’s fascination with his transformation is powerful. It’s played in his mind since Halloween, as has the feeling of being wanted so intensely.

Not to mention the feeling of... well. Feeling.

Sheldon’s saying something to him; Raj guiltily realizes he’s caught up in the memory and worse, that the inflection in Sheldon’s voice indicates it was a question and not something Raj can simply dodge with an, “Mmmm.”

“Sorry, I was thinking. What did you say?”

Sheldon only looks mildly exasperated. “I asked you what you’re getting out of this.”

Raj lifts his hips. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Sheldon hisses lightly. “But you could have intercourse with anyone. Why _me_?”

Raj has thought long and hard about this and in some ways he doesn’t know and in some ways he’s scared of what he thinks he knows.

“Because you called me a beautiful girl,” he says, awkwardly aware of his hot length pressed against Sheldon’s making it hard to think of himself as a girl at all, even temporarily.

Sheldon’s eyelashes dip slightly. “You’re not a beautiful girl this time,” he says, and Raj feels as though his heart has fallen out of the back of his body and taken his spine with it. He blushes and attempts to move away, but Sheldon isn’t done yet. “This time you’re a strong woman. It’s different.”

“Good different or bad different?”

By way of an answer Sheldon rolls them both over until Raj is straddling Sheldon’s hips; he can feel Sheldon’s cock pressing insistently between his thighs, and somewhere in that roll his heart and spine must have resumed their usual places because instead of backing off, he presses down instead.

* * *

Just like last time, once Sheldon gets warmed up, he’s relentlessly single-minded. He’s got one lubed finger buried inside Raj before you can say “Comic-Con hookup” and his only remark on the carefully chosen g-string that Raj is wearing is, “That seems intolerably uncomfortable.”

“Easy access,” Raj gasps back at him.

“Indeed.” And Sheldon twists a second finger into him, thoroughly validating Raj’s choice of undergarments. Raj moves over him, feeling Sheldon rise to meet him, and reaches down to begin working Sheldon’s pants open. It’s difficult; he has to keep one hand braced on the bed so that he doesn’t fall, and all of Sheldon’s costume seems to have hidden zippers. Sheldon absently pushes his hand away and grabs Raj’s hip to hold him still.

“Sheldon...”

“Be patient. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Considering what Sheldon’s doing with his fingers, that’s a truly remote possibility. “Doesn’t hurt. I can take it,” he says defiantly.

“Just be patient.”

Raj wonders if Sheldon’s ever been on the receiving end of this sort of treatment to know how difficult it is to “just be patient”, and says so aloud. Sheldon just raises one eyebrow – well, raises it _more_ – and says nothing, but presses his thumb against the base of Raj’s shaft, making heat tingle through Raj’s lower body.

Though he wants to just rake Sheldon’s pants open and let Sheldon slip inside him and turn that look of intense concentration into one of desire, Raj lifts up off him and starts working in earnest on getting Sheldon out of his uniform.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to touch you.” Raj is a little preoccupied with the concealed zipper of Sheldon’s shirt, its tiny tab frustratingly difficult to grasp. Seeing that he’s intent on his task, Sheldon shakes his head and sits up, clicking on the bedside light. Raj leaves him for a moment to turn out the overhead light, pulling the hair tie out of his hair as he does so and letting it fall free.

When he turns back to the bed, Sheldon’s hands are frozen on the front of his blue shirt and he’s just staring. It’s almost harder to believe than Halloween. No, wait – it _is_ harder to believe than Halloween. This is completely premeditated, not spur of the moment. Raj can feel the pull of desire between his legs, the drag of his underwear maddeningly tight against his perineum, reminding him how wet and open he is already.

He’d meant to walk slowly back to the bed, maybe swing his hips a little, let the dress sway, but he can’t keep from moving faster, moving to kneel on the bed, cover Sheldon’s hands with his own, and get the blue shirt off him as fast as possible.

Sheldon being Sheldon, he’s wearing an undershirt as well. Raj yanks it up and off over his head. He’s willing to bet that Spock never looked this ruffled, not even during _pon farr_. Sheldon tries to slow things down for just a moment, clutching at Raj’s hands, but Raj pushes him down against the pillows and starts kissing his way down Sheldon’s body. He tastes of sweat, but not unpleasantly so.

By the time that Raj gets to Sheldon’s already-open pants, Sheldon is arching and shaking under his lips. When Raj takes the head of Sheldon’s cock into his mouth, the noise Sheldon makes has him hoping that there’s nobody in the hallway outside their room. Sheldon’s fingers start combing through his hair and Raj is suddenly very glad that he let it grow out. He sucks Sheldon deeper into his mouth and feels Sheldon’s grasp tighten a little.

Raj is far from an expert at this, at least on the giving end (and, to be honest, on the receiving end as well), but he manages to work Sheldon up pretty well, until Sheldon’s making all sorts of interesting noises that aren’t words, not even in Klingon. He eases back then to just lightly run his tongue over the tip of Sheldon’s cock and Sheldon lets out a whine that might, in fact, be the first time he’s ever said “please” to Raj. Raj obligingly takes him deep again and is rewarded with a drawn-out moan.

The next time he backs off to tease, Sheldon actually says it properly. “ _Please_!”

Raj is tempted to bring him off like this – he can take care of himself in the shower or something – but the undeniable fact is that he wants Sheldon in him. He wants the hard hot length that’s currently between his lips to rub along the slick cleft between his legs before he shifts and guides Sheldon into him. And although he’s been thinking about this since Penny’s Halloween party, right now is when the nerves kick in. Once could have been written off as a drunken accident; twice cannot.

Sheldon’s hand in his hair stops grasping and starts stroking; he hadn’t realized just how tightly Sheldon was clinging until he let go. That’s what loosens his nerves; that reminder of how completely undone he can make Sheldon, how while the rest of the world thinks Sheldon’s this asexual freak, he knows the truth.

Raj lets Sheldon slip out of his mouth and tugs lightly on Sheldon’s pants. Sheldon lifts his hips obediently and Raj pulls his pants right off, pulling his socks with them. He’s not entirely certain when Sheldon took his shoes off, but that’s Sheldon; no shoes on the bed, thank you.

Raj’s boots get a free pass, though. He presses them tight against Sheldon’s thighs as he rolls the condom onto Sheldon, and he can imagine how good the soft leather feels against bare skin. He tests it by rubbing one calf deliberately along Sheldon’s thigh and watches Sheldon’s eyes close for a moment, hears the shuddering breath the action draws from him.

The lube’s gone a little tacky, so Raj lifts up and reaches back to refresh it, and that draws a choked little moan from Sheldon. Raj prolongs the movement as long as he can – it really does feel good, his fingers moving slickly over that sensitive skin – but then can’t wait any longer and sinks down onto Sheldon. The push of Sheldon’s cock into him burns a little at first, but quickly eases into a feeling of fullness. He pushes the string of his underwear out of the way and then smoothes the dress out over his thighs and Sheldon’s stomach.

He can understand now, in a way, why some women are genuinely fond of dressing up and roleplaying for their partners. Apart from anything else there’s something oddly empowering about being fully dressed while one’s partner is completely naked, completely vulnerable.

Besides, he’s _really_ enjoying being in control of how fast he moves, how deep he takes Sheldon in. He feels constrained by his underwear but it’s only a minor annoyance, particularly when held up against how good everything else feels. It’s more than just the physical pleasure he’s feeling, but the incomparable feeling of watching Sheldon’s face go slack with desire and hearing his breathing turn erratic as they move together.

Raj feels as though they’ve only just begun when Sheldon’s hands lock onto his thighs and Sheldon gives him an agonized apologetic look before letting out a long low moan. Raj can feel the heat burst as Sheldon dissolves into him.

“You – feel – so – good,” Sheldon manages after a moment, his fingers still digging into Raj’s thighs, and that makes up for the fact that, to be honest, Raj could’ve done with at least another ten minutes of action.

(To be _perfectly_ honest, he feels like he could’ve gone all night, and not just riding Sheldon, but changing positions, using his hands and mouth on the other man; seeing if he could get that cold scientist exterior to literally open up and take him in.)

He eases himself off slowly, carefully holding the base of the condom, and goes through the unlovely business of cleaning up. Sheldon’s too out of it to protest or help or even move until Raj stretches out beside him. Then he reaches out and finds Raj’s hand with his own.

“I’m given to understand that such a fast reaction is rarely welcome.”

Raj doesn’t have the heart to agree with him; he’s been the one to come too fast before. Instead, he just musters up a smile and says, “It’s okay. I know I was just too irresistible for you.”

Sheldon goes pinkish and murmurs, “Yes, you were.”

That really _does_ make Raj feel better, although he’s uncomfortably hard, his erection constrained by the black lace and silk of his underwear. He shifts position a little and feels the elastic at the top of the g-string slide over the head of his cock, and he can’t help but make a frustrated little noise.

Sheldon rolls to face him and eases one hand up under the hem of Raj’s dress, rubbing slowly up over his waxed-for-the-occasion thigh. He runs one finger along the crease between Raj’s thigh and groin and seems a little shocked to discover just how thorough a job Raj had done with the waxing. It had taken a long time to reduce his hair down to one neat little triangle; a long, painful time. But then Sheldon’s thumb rubs over the head of Raj’s cock and it puts all thoughts of pain and suffering out of Raj’s mind.

Raj isn’t sure if Sheldon can get him off like this. Not with just these slow, maddening strokes of his thumb, sliding Raj’s foreskin back and forth over the slick tip of his cock. It’s good; it’s sending ripples of pleasure low through his belly, but he doesn’t know if it’s _enough_.

Sheldon pulls his hand away for a moment and Raj’s reflexes are too slow for him to protest before Sheldon’s mouth opens and he licks his thumb, catching the glisten of pre-come with the tip of his tongue and rolling it into his mouth almost contemplatively. Then he returns his hand to Raj’s cock, still just teasing the very tip of it. Raj remembers this kind of play, feeling as though Sheldon is treating his cock as a kind of oversized clit, and moans quietly.

Raj feels more than sees Sheldon’s free hand wrap around his own cock, working himself surely back to full arousal. He’s too busy feeling as though his genitals will explode from the building-building-building pleasure in them. Every time he thinks he might actually come, Sheldon changes the pace of his movements, or pulls his hand away altogether to suck at his fingers again, the expression on his face more inquisitive than anything else when he does so.

Raj is on the verge of pushing Sheldon’s hand away and jerking himself off, so tightly wound he can no longer stand it, when Sheldon’s hand leaves him again. Raj hears the crinkle of foil, scrambles back to his knees, and straddles Sheldon’s hips again just as Sheldon smears lube over the condom. This time burns even more at first thanks to his haste, but then Sheldon’s fingers unerringly find Raj’s cock again, tenting up the red fabric of the dress.

After that it’s just a haze of riding down on Sheldon’s cock, not teasing or anything this time, just greedily using him and trying not to over think the fact that Sheldon is _letting_ himself be used. That, in fact, Sheldon’s fingers are moving relentlessly on him, encouraging him. He wants to touch Sheldon, to see how much of Sheldon’s bare chest he can span with one hand, but he needs both hands to keep from overbalancing, unused as he is to this particular style of sex.

And then it ceases to matter because his climax hits him with all the subtlety of a boulder dropped into a pond. He comes all over Sheldon’s hand and his own underwear and probably his dress, and through the haze he can see Sheldon’s face, surprised at either the intensity of Raj’s climax or the unexpected fact that it draws a second one from Sheldon so soon after the first.

Raj gets as far as moving off of Sheldon and tossing the condom in the trash before his body is so suffused with a post-coital languor that he simply has to flop down to lie beside Sheldon, draping one arm loosely across his chest.

They remain curled together for a while, until the fact that they’ve made rather a lot of mess finally becomes quite undeniable. Sheldon gathers their clothes together while Raj lies inert on the bed, staying put until Sheldon insistently yanks at the top blanket and he has to get up. Then Sheldon claims first shower, leaving Raj to wrap himself in his robe and make arrangements to get their clothes cleaned overnight. Fortunately he can put everything in a bag outside their door, because he’s not sure he wants to come face to face with whoever’s going to be stuck with the task. It is Comic-Con, yes, and they have probably seen the same and even more strange over the years, but that doesn’t mean he wants to go out there tomorrow and know which staff members are staring at him because he’s wearing a dress and which are staring at him because they know (or think they know) a little more about what’s gone on under it.

He does have his spare costume to change to for day two, of course. They both do. But it only takes the memory of Sheldon’s fingers on his thigh under the dress for Raj to be sure that he doesn’t want to resort to being Robin.

By the time Sheldon gets out of the bathroom, Raj is fully aware that he needs to get clean, and he dives for the shower as soon as Sheldon’s done. The hotel soap and shampoo are boringly generic, but the oversized bath towels make up for it, and by the time he’s dry and pulling on his pajama shorts he feels much less revolting. Not that he minds getting messy, but dried come _itches_.

* * *

Raj makes his way back out of the bathroom to find Sheldon tucked into bed already. Raj hesitates a second before taking a step toward the second bed, and Sheldon’s hand shoots out to grasp his wrist.

“Where are you going?”

“To bed.”

Sheldon snorts disparagingly and pulls the covers back. “Come _here_.”

Raj goes, curling in against Sheldon’s side. Sheldon’s arm makes an awkward angle around his shoulder, but he appreciates the gesture. The fingers of Sheldon’s other hand start combing through Raj’s hair, separating the fine damp curls out in a gentle repetitive motion that slowly lulls Raj toward sleep.

“Why are you like this when we’re together?” he murmurs.

Sheldon’s fingers stop for a moment, and then continue. “Believe it or not, Rajesh, there are some things that science can’t eloquently explain. I would ascribe it to some kind of hormonal change in my brain, but to go into detail would potentially ruin the moment.”

Raj likes the way that his name sounds in Sheldon’s accent; it’s softer, somehow, than the way that anyone else says it. He turns his head to kiss Sheldon’s shoulder, and Sheldon’s hand cups his cheek, tilting his head up so they can share a kiss.

Over the years Raj has had a variety of strange hookups, thanks first to his inability to speak to women and later to his discovery of inebriation as a means to facilitate speech. But he has to admit that sleeping with a man who belittles him and his research ninety-nine percent of the time and then fucks him silly when he’s wearing a dress is definitely in the top five.

He wishes he _could_ talk about it to Howard, but the thing is that Howard isn’t the greatest best friend ever, and would inevitably say something stupid. Leonard would – well, Leonard wouldn’t believe that Sheldon ever had sex. And even if Raj could talk to Penny sober, she’d still assume that he was drunk if he told her what was going on.

“Stop worrying,” Sheldon says.

“I’m not.”

“I mean it. You’re too tense. I can’t sleep if you’re going to be so rigid.”

“This from the man who sleeps at the precisely calculated center of the bed.”

“That’s not true. I have three sleeping positions between which I cycle to ensure even wear and tear on the mattress springs.”

Raj laughs and feels Sheldon’s answering laugh rumble through his chest. It’s strange to hear Sheldon laughing, but in the context they’re currently in the standards for ‘strange’ are a little different than usual.

“Are you planning to wear that dress for the whole convention?” Sheldon asks a few minutes later.

Raj wrinkles his nose. “Only if the hotel’s cleaning service is any good. Why? Are you planning on running off with some other girl if I don’t?”

“You’re overreacting,” Sheldon informs him. Nose to nose as they are, Raj can see how serious Sheldon is; he wonders if Sheldon can tell just how serious _he_ is as well.

“I’m being realistic.”

“Rajesh.” Sheldon clears his throat and tightens the arm around Raj’s shoulders a little. “I promise you, I won’t be looking at anyone else but you for the entire convention.”

Raj feels a funny warm feeling spread out inside him. “Even if I’m not in the Uhura dress?”

“Even if you’re not in the Uhura dress.”

Raj relaxes against Sheldon, tucking his head back down against Sheldon’s shoulder. And to think that this is only day one of the convention.


End file.
